Damaged Goods
by bring me a dream
Summary: A little piece to fit in between Heaven&Hell and Family remains – Dean can’t sleep, cue a brothers heart to heart and lots of angst. Warning! Spoilers for S4!


**Damaged Goods**

**A/N: This is my first ever fic, let alone my first ever SPN fic so I really hope you enjoy it! Any feedback would be great – be as brutal as you want! This is really just a self-indulgent piece as the ending of this fic is what I wanted to see at the end of Heaven and Hell but I'm sure I'm not alone on that front! It's most probably been done a thousand times before and then some so I hope I don't bore anyone. I'd also like to give a huge thank you to Myth87, or Sadia as she's better known. Without her I may have never published this, plus she helped make it readable so a big *Mwah* goes to her. **

**Summary: A little piece to fit in between Heaven and Hell and Family remains – Warning spoilers for S4! ****Dean can't sleep, cue a brothers heart to heart and lots of angst. **

**Warnings: Contains spoilers for S4 and contains one use of mild language along with plenty of Dean angst and a frustrated Sammy! **

**Disclaimer: Sadly I don't own Dean nor Sam or any rights to SPN. *sniff* **

Dean exhaled a ragged breath as his eyes glistened in the artificial light which cascaded down upon him. He precariously dangled a bottle of whiskey, swirling the golden brown liquid around so it hit the light just so, painting a yellow tinge across his face. The air outside was below freezing, the cold of the night stabbing at Dean's skin like tiny needles, but he welcomed the sensation, the pain. He knocked back a swig, swallowing it down slow, savouring the burn it left behind.

His eyes drifted slowly shut, the weight of the world willing them. When Dean closed his eyes he was back in hell, when he opened them, he was in his homemade hell. The world Dean saw now was not the one he saw four months ago. The world was now filtered through echoes of fire and blood and screams; it resonated around him, inside him, intertwining into knots within his subconscious, forcing out the parts which told the story of who he once was.

He pulled down on the sleeve of his Dad's leather jacket - even wearing it now, he felt like that skinny little eight year old playing super daddy; whenever he put it on he was safe. He was home. All the smells of the bars and skivvy motels he'd once stayed in still clung to it; he could still smell Dad on it. But now that was a memory lost in his fractured psyche and the special powers it once held no longer existed - it was just a jacket.

The motel door opened behind him, letting out warm air which fought with the cold until they merged into one. Dean didn't even flinch as Sam hesitantly towered over him. Sam instinctively wrapped his arms around himself, as a lame attempt of shielding from the cold.

"Aren't you freezing?"

Sam's words brought him back to a numb state of reality, the sentence hanging in the air before slowly disintegrating. Dean sucked in an icy breath, releasing an opaque cloud into the air like part of his soul was escaping. He looked up at Sam, looked into his little brother's eyes, the fear and worry that resonated out of them nearly making him weep right there on that ice-cold step. He was supposed to be the worrying big brother; when had the roles changed? He mentally shook away any ounce of emotions that hovered at the surface, and placed on the mask of his patented smirk.

"I've got my insulation right here," holding up the near empty bottle of whisky.

Sam snorted at the childish way Dean shook the bottle in front of him. He knelt down on the cement step next to him, holding his knees up to his chest, trapping any warmth there, his eyes constantly fixed on his big brother who was now engrossed in a cluster of dirt on the ground. Sam knew there was an emotional supernova inertly buried underneath his brothers tatty barriers, but he would never be the one to unlock them, because only Dean held that key.

"You were screaming again."

Dean flinched, tilting his head as he rolled his eyes as if to shrug off such a girly statement, but his silence only encouraged Sam to probe further.

"You can't keep running Dean, you just can't."

He smirked - how could he be running? He was living inside his own hell made up of flesh and bone and guilt and terror; constant images throbbing in his head, eternal imprints to remind him how far from himself he'd become. He had nowhere to run, but he could run from Sam, and Dean knew that's what Sam's angle was.

Sam shuffled his feet, realising his Sasquatch height was not made for such sitting positions, especially on small steps, but his shuffling didn't seem to penetrate though the silent rock next to him. He stared at his brother through anxious eyes, his heart pounding in his chest, desperately pleading for a response, but all he received was a smirk and tired eyes, glimmering with flecks of pain and torture. Sam released a frustrated howl from the back of his throat, letting out a cloud of hot air, suddenly aware that he had been holding his breath the whole time. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head in protest, fighting back the urge to shake out all the stubbornness and smart-ass exterior from his pain-in-the-ass older brother.

Dean took a swig from the bottle he now held with a vice-like grip in his hands, like it was the only thing keeping him from splitting open and exposing every scar and wound which seeped underneath his flesh and bones. The rush of the warm golden liquid through his body made him shiver. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, pausing for a beat of a second, bringing his hand down to his face, gazing at it like it was some alien being. A look of pure disgust and shame masked his face and quickly, he holstered his hand away in his leather jacket pocket. Sam witnessed all of this, Dean's guards slowly becoming translucent for that brief second, and his mind travelled back to three days ago.

~**~

_The motel they were staying in was as greasy as the owner, who had served them, and the room was the size of a prison cell, including the bathroom, but it met their needs. After several hours of research about the legend of a Japanese spirit called __Hanako-san__, __Sam was suffocating; he stumbled outside for some fresh air with a grunt to Dean who had his mouth wrapped around a cheeseburger. Sam's feet crunched in the freshly laid snow, which looked like pure white innocence had covered the ground. The snow made the air feel purified and Sam welcomed it, compared to the toxic air of the motel room. After thirty minutes of mindless walking, the snow lost its innocent charm as black slush traced around his footsteps. The cold whipping against his skin, he relented back to the greasy motel. As he opened the door, his senses were attacked with the warming smell of burgers and something else which he really didn't want to find out the origin of. He clocked the half eaten burger lying on the bed, ketchup pooling a circle around its discarded remains and that's when his hearing kicked in as he heard water running profusely and muffled sounds of scratching coming from the bathroom. Sam called out for Dean. _

"_Hey man, any break through on the Mathis case?" The only reply was the sounds of scratching becoming more vigorous. "Dean!" _

_Sam tentatively approached the bathroom door, swallowing hard and trying to stop his body overreacting to what a simple wooden door was hiding from him. Light weaved its way out of a small slit in the door; it danced across Sam's face as his eyes struggled to recognize the shadows it created on the wall. The scratching grew louder and faster and a sharp, unnatural cry ripped though the tiny slit, which the door teasingly provided and that was Sam's cue. He fell through the door with so much force it swung awkwardly back against the wall, one of the screws loosening. "De-," travelled from his throat coming to a halt on his tongue. _

_His eyes frantically moved from the white sink, to the blood, to his brother's hands, to his brother's face. Dean didn't even look at him, he hadn't even acknowledged his little brother's presence. He was armed with a bloodstained nailbrush and a cream-coloured soap mingled with creamy red swirls of his blood. His hands were an angry red; skin had peeled back where even darker shades of red shone through. Sam swallowed down the contents of his stomach, breathing in the whole world to help him get through this. He watched his brother continue to scrub his already raw hands. Sam winced at how painful they looked, but saw no sign of any discomfort on Dean's face as he methodically scrubbed phantom stains from his hands, his total lack of awareness scaring every inch of Sam. _

"_Dean, stop! Stop!" Sam grabbed hold of Dean's hands, the brush dropping with a clang in the sink. "Stop!" _

_Dean looked up into Sam's eyes, a sudden wash of realization hitting him like a punch in the stomach. Sam saw the vulnerability in his brother's eyes and it terrified him. _

"_I…I….It won't come off, Sammy." The words came from Dean's lips like a scared little child was saying them. Sam clung to his hands, repressing the tears that threatened to fall._

~**~

"I'm sorry Dean." Sam looked down at his knees, not seeing the shock that sentence provoked in Dean.

"For what?" The question sounding more powerful than Dean intended.

Sam looked up to see Dean suddenly animatedly waiting for an answer; it was a total transformation from the broken shell which sat next to him seconds ago. "I'm sorry for what you had to go through, Dean. I'm sorry that you had to go through all that for me. And...," he took a hesitant breath. "I'm sorry for myself, because now I've lost my big brother because of it."

Both brothers eyes met, an invisible connection pulling their gazes together like old friends embracing. Dean broke the connection first, an aching twitch residing on his upper lip. He couldn't process this information. A heavy layer of guilt crushed his chest, burying him deep into the cement step and to the earth below. The voice living in Dean's head, the one which told him daily how much of a screw up he was, replayed a new mantra over and over. 'I've let Sammy down again! Again! What kind of a useless, shitty brother am I?'

"You don't have to apologise for anything Sammy." Dean choked back the sounds of anguish emitting from his throat, a single, perfectly-formed tear traced down the contours of his face. Every single emotion he had in him, encapsulated inside that solitude tear.

His grip loosened on the whiskey bottle he had still been clinging onto like his only lifeline; Dean watched it escape from his hands, time slowing down like he was back in Hell, taking detailed note of the way its whole form shattered, tiny pieces splintering beneath his feet, never to be whole again. Sam's muscles jumped at the bottle giving in to its shattered end. He looked over at his brother who was also shattering next to him; he would never come to understand why those words he had said seared through Dean's heart. Tears were coming faster down his cheeks. Sam laid a hand on his older brother's shoulder, wishing he could bear all his pain for him and right there on that cold, frosty step, outside that greasy, skivvy motel room, Dean let Sam envelope him in his arms, sobs stolen by the night, as he listened to his little brother's heart beating.


End file.
